Sunday, May 14 (Mothers Day): 3 Mexican guys, dressed as mariachis, get on the Manhattan-bound Brighton line Q-train at Prospect Park, Brooklyn. After the doors close, they begin to sing and play instruments. The stretch until the next station at 7th Avenue is relatively long, so it's not uncommon for buskers to try to score some cash from a captive audience between those two stations. After a moment, the lead singer stops singing and, his sombrero extended in his right hand, begins to make his pitch for donations. He speaks exclusively in Spanish, content in the knowledge that, notwithstanding the fact that the neighborhoods through which the Brighton line passes are not particularly Hispanic, in 2007 enough people in a New York City subway car will understand what he's saying to enable him to earn his living without having to switch to English.
First 230 years of U.S. history: Direction of flows in people and funds between Ireland and New York City was as follows:
People:From: Ireland; To:New York.
Funds:From: New York; To:Ireland.
Winter 2007: Big ad campaign appears in New York City subways encouraging riders to apply for high-tech jobs in Ireland. (One member of Perl Seminar NY has already been hired to work for Google in Dublin.) New York Times reports that, with continuing decline of dollar versus euro, many Irish are buying condo apartments in Manhattan because in exchange-rate adjusted terms, they're cheaper than apartments in Dublin -- and you can rent them out for more than you could get in Dublin, as well.
